


Before

by Aenorno



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 19:10:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14796293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenorno/pseuds/Aenorno
Summary: Before he was the Nerevarine, he was Ahti. A series of experiences with a certain hero opens doors that perhaps should have been left shut.





	Before

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the events of Elder Scrolls Online.

Ahti Sero’s parents were kind, loving folk. Simple, hard-working Dunmer that made their own way in Seyda Neen as traders and innkeepers.

If Ahti closed his eyes, the warmth of his mother’s smile bathed his face and the roughness of his father’s stubble scratched his cheek. There was never a time where laughter had not rung in his ears, even with the most determinedly grouchy customer. Father coaxed a smile out of anyone, so the hustle and bustle of the inn was often accompanied by peals of Ahti’s laughter. 

When he wasn’t laughing, he listened. Rushing up to the gruffest looking adventurer and begging them for stories. A Breton spellsword, a Nord farmer, an Imperial businessman- they all indulged the gregarious Ahti with both storybook tales and the most mundane aspects of their lives. Ahti loved it.

The Dunmeri dialect of Seyda Neen natives rolled across his tongue as easily as it had 15 years ago as a boy- a jumble of every inflection and twang from across Vvardenfell. It brought his heart close to bursting the way that small port town contained so much. He’d tasted Balmoran sujamma, ridden a Silt Strider, rubbed the silk of Telvanni robes against his cheek, even touched crushed rock from Baar Dau itself.

Further back in his mind, something like the rays of the sun at his fingertips. Now, with a mere brush, Ahti closed wounds and lessened aches. 

There was nothing Ahti loved more, no joy like the kind he found in watching pain disappear from peoples’ scrunched up features. Life in Vvardenfell was not for the weak or unwary, and Ahti made his parents’ customers lives just a bit easier.

A grumpy Telvanni named Teleth became his instructor, fully intending to leave Vvardenfell forever when she met Ahti. Her hair was as white as her sightless eyes, but her tongue had not mellowed in all her long years on Nirn. She was the customer who Ahti had to work at, slowly chipping away at her until she threw up her gnarled hands and agreed to teach him.

But only if you stop asking me all these damned questions.

And so he lived in this little world of Seyda Neen, visiting people worlds away from him.

Even that terrible war- the Three Banners War- seemed so very far away. Vvardenfell stayed nestled within Morrowind, thousands of miles away from Cyrodiil or Molag Bal or whatever else was going on. The hardships of the rest of the world came and passed. Molag Bal was defeated, or so he heard. 

Ahti healed ills and carried on.

One rainy day in the middle of Harvestmere, a storm made its way into his parents’ inn. 

In all of the thousands of tales that Ahti heard and repeated, this woman was that faceless legend that led the charge. The hero without a name, seen by everyone and yet known by no one at all. She bore the Ebonheart Pact colors on her worn leathers, the magnificent crimsoned dragon’s wings curling around her torso. A war hero with red hair and a strange smile sharper than the obsidian on her dual swords.

This confused Ahti. Smiles were warm and wide, but she wore hers just a shade too dark. A fresh bruise bloomed on her right cheekbone and her knuckles bore a mix of her own blood and the person she punched.

He’d reached for her, hands warm with healing, but she waved him away.

“That’s not necessary.”

“No?”

“It’ll heal, won’t it?” She cracked that strange smile. “Why drain yourself?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

The hero put down her sujamma, fixing Ahti with a gaze that made him feel naked. Nonetheless, he held that rubied stare. What was there to fear from this woman?

She smiled then- a true smile, as blinding as the sun. It startled him, such a sudden change, but it still brought a smile to Ahti’s face. She stuck out her hand.

“I’m Nevia.”

She was called the Vestige- Soulless One- a melancholy title, but she wore it well. Ahti marveled at her, following her into his first battles. He saw his first deaths at her side, and traversed the length of Vvardenfell and back. A quest to save a living god.

Ahti had a hard time believing it sometimes. That childlike wonderment at fanciful tales of war and death evaporated under the rigors of this adventure, but he never lost his faith in heroes. If anything, he had never been more sure of their continued existence.

Nevia was the hero of this story. Ahti was content.

Yet something stirred within him when he first laid eyes on the dying Vivec- paralyzing fear. Vehk, don’t die. Don’t you dare die. A voice that wasn’t entirely his own cried out at the Warrior-Poet’s weakened state.

The words sprang to the forefront of his mind, unbidden. Brother. Friend. It shook Ahti to his very core, and he recoiled at this foreign invader. It warred with some love that felt so much older than Ahti’s twenty seven years. Healing magic bubbled at his clammy fingers, for once not warm with his magic, and he reached for the god with shaky hands. 

Tears that Ahti didn’t understand ran down his cheeks as Vehk smiled at him, as bright as it was all those years ago. What?

“You can’t heal this, Ahti Sero,” the Warrior-Poet gently told him, “But your time will come.”

There was a woman. Naryu Virian of the Morag Tong. An assassin. She was a friend of Nevia’s- a firebrand with sad eyes. Ahti saw the cracks in her, but she wore her scars like trophies. She didn’t need him to come with his healing magic. She was roughly hewn with sharp edges, and Ahti adored her.

Her tongue was as sharp as her blade. At first, Ahti thought she disliked him.

He helped her nonetheless. Occasionally, he’d make her smile a wry, but wide smile. That reward was almost enough to erase any thought of a dying god or his affliction. Ahti basked in her affection, drank it in like a dying man in a desert, but he found that he more enjoyed giving his to her.

His compliments and open stares brought a flush to her lovely grey cheeks, but him saving her apprentice brought such a soft look to her eyes that Ahti knew he was too far gone.

He was scheduled to leave that night. He’d already bought the services of the Silt Strider to meet Nevia at Sadrith Mora.

He was supposed to say farewell to Naryu, then leave.

She kissed him with a desperation that Ahti gently tamed with his soft smile, kissing her instead with unhurried adoration and worship. 

The sounds that left her mouth could’ve sustained Ahti for the rest of the night. After all, he so loved giving. She laughed at his blush when a particularly loud moan of his name escaped her, and he found himself laughing too. He’d never heard anything so lovely.

But before long, he found himself groaning out her name between gritted teeth as he further lost himself within the hard curves of her form and the smell of her sweat on his skin.

Another woman laid beneath him- Naryu’s grey skin replaced by soft skin the color of spun gold. A halo of damp red curls spread from her golden, beautiful head. She was softer, but no less beautiful, her plump mouth wide as she moaned a foreign name. His name, it had to be, but it wasn’t. It tasted even sweeter than Naryu’s.

He fought the urge to join her, caught in semi-awareness of his own fantasy. But it was too real to be fantasy. Ayem, he’d wanted to scream as he climaxed.

The sweat on his body ran frigid, but the fleeting bit of emotion was already gone. As Naryu lay in his arms, his skin felt too tight- like he was an intruder in his own body. He didn’t move, as still as death, mentally scrambling for the woman with red hair.

He left before dawn.

Ahti didn’t return to the Temple to see Vivec’s glorious return after all was said and done. He waited for Nevia at St. Delyn’s, fiddling with his staff and fighting to stay awake.

The weight of a hundred sleepless nights weighed on his shoulders. The invader disappeared as fast as it appeared, but Ahti constantly waited for the return of emotions and memories that crushed and lifted him at once. Not a moment passed where he was off guard for this invisible enemy. Every waking moment was a relentless search of his own existence. But for what? Ahti didn’t know, but undulated terror gripped him at the idea of facing Vivec or any of the Tribunal again.

He also thought of death. Nevia told him of the war with a callous sort of unfettered honesty- of soldiers lost, war crimes, and Cyrodiil- so poignant that Ahti felt he was on the battlefield staring at the bloodied corpses with her. He’d asked. She’d seen the eagerness in his eyes, and erupted. She wasn’t a passive storyteller. She punctuated tales of hard sacrifice with demands to know why he sat on his island, content to listen to adventurers and their tales while people died.

He didn’t bother to defend himself. He just stared at this furious hero, unable to come up with a suitable answer. There wasn’t one.

“I’m sorry.”

The words weren’t enough. Nevia wasn’t a woman of words.

The next morning, she’d laughed as if nothing had ever happened. As fleeting as a passing storm. 

But Ahti never forgot. How could he stand by? What kind of a person was he?

His hands shook. He steadied them by gripping his staff.

Far too soon, he stood on the docks of Seyda Neen hugging Nevia Sadri. He’d never had a best friend. Nevia came as close as anyone was likely to.

She never mentioned his fear, though he knew she saw it. She saw everything.

“You’re sheltered.” Ahti wasn’t offended by her words.

“Yes.”

“Gonna stay in Seyda Neen?”

“No.” I can’t, was the unsaid part. Not after what he’d seen.

“Why?” A courtesy. She knew.

“I need to help.”

Her smile, like the first day they met, was like the sun. He smiled too. He kissed her forehead, but she pulled back and gripped his shoulder. 

“Ahti.”

He’d become accustomed to such things. Nevia was as unpredictable as Red Mountain.

“Ahti, I’m going to die.”

Ahti frowned.

“I will too.”

She smiled, but it was that dark smile. Ahti didn’t smile.

“No. People like me die. Quickly. Suddenly. Violently.” She listed these things off like a grocery list. “I’m going to die. It’ll probably be soon. One day, I’ll go on some heroic stunt and I’ll meet someone better. I’ll rot on the floor of some cave or some shallow grave because my feint or dodge wasn’t quick enough.”

Ahti stared, fishing for something. Anything.

“You know I’m right,” Nevia said softly, squeezing his shoulder.

He was a healer. Yes. She was right.

“I’ll never see you again,” he realized aloud.

In the months he’d known her, her appearance finally lived up to her dark, melancholy mantle. 

“Be careful, Ahti,” she whispered, “Morrowind needs a savior. She just doesn’t know it yet.”


End file.
